This one was over before it began. Once you saw the Caps respond to the Rangers first shift by going into another gear, you knew this one was over. For the first time all series I really felt like the skill difference between the two teams was just glaring. Don’t get me wrong, it’s evident the Caps are the better team, but tonight they looked like a team WORLDS better than the Rangers. Personally I felt the Rangers played really hard, and their effort level was right where it’s been all series, all month, all season. But the difference in skill was like the difference between a DaVinci painting and your kids fingerpaintings you have stuck on your Fridge. Who scored the Caps 3 goals? Semin, Ovechkin, and Green. The Rangers just can’t match up with those names. Even Marian Gaborik, who I firmly believe will be back to his usual elite level next season, isn’t on the level of Ovechkin. Ovechkin just took over this game single handedly. He set up Greens goal on a brilliant pass, and he made an individual play that nobody on the Rangers is capable of doing. Period

This wasn’t a lost season though. It was a pretty miraculous season to say the least. The Rangers came into the season with Drury, Gaborik, and Frolov as their 3 highest paid forwards. Those 3 combined for 30 goals and 39 assists this season. Last season Marian Gaborik alone had better numbers than that. THAT is why the Rangers failed this post season. Your horses have to be your horses. Gaborik had 2 points in 5 games in the playoffs, not near enough, but kind of understandable when you look at what surrounds him. The guy is a premiere player for sure, but he’s basically out there with 2nd and 3rd line players, whereas Gaborik has guys like Backstrom and Semin who can and do play around him. That is the difference here. The Rangers have way too much money allocated to useless parts. Gaborik will be better next season, he’ll be back to his usual level, but guys like Drury have got to go. The Rangers need to get more skilled, and integrate more offense into their lineup. They have a plethora of redundant parts and need to make a play for another elite forward in the trade market. Glen Sather has a lot of work to do, this is a pivotal offseason for the Rangers. I’ll outline my plan in the next week or 2.

For now, I need to rest, this has been a trying playoff season for me. Take care all.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

I read this book a while back, it was the first part of a long series, something like 13 books (never got around to reading the final 12) and it was called “Lemony Snicket’s A series of unfortunate events”. It’s a snarky little book that’s about, as you might have guessed, a series of unfortunate events. Like the book, that’s how tonight’s game played out. How does the ref not blow the whistle when Henriks glove goes over the puck? How does a puck hit off a Caps elbow and go into the net when it was well on it’s way to going wide? How does the Ref justify getting in the way of Brandon Dubinsky when the Rangers would have had a 2 on 0 break? How do Gabby and Henrik have such a weird moment to lose this game? To blow a game like this, you either have to play like absolute dog crap, or have a lot of things go way the hell wrong. Tonight, it was a lot of things going way the hell wrong.

Before we get into the refs, we should talk about something glaringly obvious to anyone who watched the game. The Rangers did NOT quit playing after the 2nd period. That’s what the average fanboy will say. No, the Rangers played hard, but the unquestionably ran out of gas. Particularly the Rangers top 4 defenseman who all played over 30 minutes, Dan Girardi nearly 40. The Caps were able to spread their time out since their top 6 are all fairly good in their own zone, whereas the Rangers have a disaster of a 3rd pairing in McCabe and Gilroy who can only be used when the Caps have their 4th line on the ice. Any other matchup and those 2 gets abused. This also has to do with the Rangers style of play. The Rangers play a balls to the wall, foot on the gas for 60, 80, 90 minutes type of hockey, and that has worn them out, especially as games go long. People may want to blame Torts, but there is no blame to be put here, the Rangers just are not a talented bunch and HAVE to play this way to win. It’s how the Penguins are playing, except they had half a season of riding Crosby and Malkin to ease the load a bit and have a much easier match-up than we do. I agree with Run Duguay here, Torts needs to ease off the guys the next few days, let them rest, they are spent.

The real issue here is the Rangers just flat out lack talent, and when the offseason comes, I’m going to put forth my radical plan to fix the Rangers in 1 dramatic offseason.

Getting back to the game, there were a confluence of ref-eff-ups that screwed us all night. First and foremost, Henrik Lundqvist covers a loose puck with his glove, the ref doesn’t blow his whistle, they whack away, and eventually it goes into the back of the net. How does he justify not blowing the whistle? I have no idea, because I sure lose sight of the puck the second Henrik covered it, and that was in slow motion through multiple angles. There is no way on earth the ref saw a loose puck there. NO WAY ON EARTH. Secondly you have the ref play defense on the Rangers when Gabby and Dubinsky would have had a 2 on 0. The Referee unconscionably skates into Dubinskys path, a good 5 feet from the boards, to break up the play. What on Earth was he thinking? When you saw the replay, you literally saw the Ref skate right into the path of the puck, therefore stopping the play, instead of taking a different route, like to the middle of the ice, or, more sensibly, straight back. It probably cost the Rangers a high quality scoring chance. 2 on 0 with Gabby and Dubi? I take those odds any day of the week. Finally there was the mystery slash by Sean Avery that led to the game tying goal. Where was the slash. Someone show me, because I sure as hell didn’t see it. Awful reffing this series has really hurt the Rangers. It’s not the penalties on us that bothers me as much as the lack of whistles on scrums where we have control of the puck, and an unforgivable pick-off play by the ref that negated a clean 2 on 0 break.

This team has a lot to be proud of, and frankly we deserve to be up 3-1 in this series right now. The Hockey Gods are cruel and evil.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

Thoughts Mario?

Rangers Review | Comments Off

Another 1 goal game, another hard fought coin flip of a match, and a different result. Tonight, the Rangers finally got some calls, they finally got some bounces, and, they finally got a W. Give credit right at the top, I thought moving Dubinsky to center was a questionable move tonight, but Torts seemed to pull the right string, as Dubi and Gabby both played like men possessed. While Gabby remains off the goal scoring sheet, he is still generating chances, and moving Dubi to center seems to have re-energized a very important part of our team who, thus far, has been more or less a non factor.

I also mentioned before how the Rangers absolutely had to match the Capitals on the Power Play, and tonight they did, when Christensen absolutely sniped a shot top shelf to even out the power play goals per team. Also, for the first time all series, Neuvirth looked human, his rebound control wasn’t all that great, and as the Versus crew pointed out, he outright refused to leave his net to get to pucks which costed the Caps territorial time for sure. The only way to beat a team that plays the way the Caps do is to dump and chase and win board battles, that is made a hell of a lot easier when the goalie refuses to get to pucks behind the net.

Credit also to Brian Boyle. I have been down on Boyle for a while now, but I felt like he played a monster of a game, generated some scoring chances, and just plain old worked his ass off from start to finish.

Finally of course you have the play of Henrik Lundqvist who has yet to surrender more than 2 goals in a game this series. Without Henrik, this one is easily 0-3 for the Caps. Rangers are still in this, but they absolutely must win game 4, going down 3-1 into Washington is probably a death sentence.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

The Rangers definitely played a better game tonight than they did a few days before. They played hard, they gave a great effort, they left it all out there on the ice. But at the end of the day, talent won out. Sure, it wasn’t the talented guys that scored the goals, but the Capitals are the better team, and as such they made their own breaks.

Going into this series, I felt this was the single worst draw the Rangers could have had in the Eastern Conference. They are playing a more talented team, who now knows how to defend in their own zone, who played a tremendous home game, and knows how to win close games. Just like I figured it would, this series has played out to a stalemate for 90% of the game, and the other 10% is when the Caps go on surges and win the games. The Rangers have yet to have productive surges in this series thus far, everything has been one and done. One good shift, then back into the neutral zone for 5 or 6 minutes. The Caps though have been able to string together shift after shift of pressure, and it has worn on the Rangers defense which has made some mistakes, as you expect considering a) their age and b) the quality of player they are playing against.

So what’s the Rangers problem in this series? It’s fairly simple. Who would you rather have on your team…Ovechkin Backstrom and Semin, or Gaborik, Christensen and Prospal. Think long and hard about that one, because I know it’s a difficult question to answer. The Rangers are going to have to do some restructuring this offseason. Their lack of talent on their top line is killing them. The Rangers bottom 9 has been their biggest asset all year long, but without a line to lead the way, they are going to suffer year in and year out against talented teams that work as hard as they do.

Speaking of Gaborik, he’s been the only Ranger thus far to assert his offensive will whatsoever. He’s played a damn good series, and you can really see how badly he wants it. Dubinsky, Drury, Anisimov, Stepan, Boyle, etc however are playing like they are either scared, or they want someone else to score for them. Don’t misunderstand me now, it’s not that they are playing lazy, far from it, they are all working very hard out there, but they don’t seem to want to be “the man” the way a guy like Ovechkin or Semin does. They just want to sit back and blend into the background. This all goes back to what Torts has said repeatedly. They need someone to step up and make a play. Gabby can’t do it all on his own, not playing against a team as good defensively as that one.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

I figured the games would be close, and look at what we find in game 1. An overtime game that was fairly evenly played, albeit not the most exciting game to be sure. The 2 teams who focus on defense did so to a tee, unfortunately the game seemed to slow down and had very few quality scoring chances for both teams. The goalies did not have to make too many miraculous saves, only 2 or 3 for each, and in the end the game was decided by a broken play caused in equal parts by Captain Cardboard Chris Drury, and our stud defenseman Marc Staal.

On the play in question Drury had more than enough time to clear the puck, he didn’t. Then, when Staal had the puck Drury vacated the zone to try to get a pass, Staal tries an extremely risky lob pass, it gets intercepted, and wham before you can blink your eyes, it’s game over. This was a game when you can see the importance of having those dominating type players, like an Ovechkin, like a Semin, Backstrom, etc. The Rangers have 1 of those guys, that’s it. Dubinsky is an elite 2nd line player in my personal opinion, but he’s not a guy like Ovechkin or Semin or Gabby. This is when you can really see the Rangers needing to go out and get a Brad Richards, though personally I still think we missed the board on Kovalchuk. Anyway, getting back on topic, the game itself wasn’t that poorly played by the Rangers, i’m not sure I can point to any particular aspect of the game that they didnt do well at. They hit, they blocked shots, they got in and tried to press the attack, but in the end, the better team won. Period.

Marian Gaborik was definitely the Rangers best forward, having a few great scoring chances that he couldn’t convert on, and constantly being a threat out there. He played the boards with some conviction and won quite a few battles he usually loses, but still, how can you blame a guy who plays with Christensen, Prospal, or a rookie center for not scoring in a tightly checked playoff game? You need to give him some help, hopefully, some will be on the way soon.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

In past years I used to look at all the metrics of the teams. Compare their offenses, their defenses, their goalies, coaches, head scouts, cheerleaders, whether they used Gatorade or Powerade. And after all that is said and done, none of the numbers really seem to make a damn bit of difference in the playoffs. So, screw it, this year, I’m just going to tell you what I feel from the gut about a few of these things, screw numbers, just going with what I think.

To me, this seems like a matchup of 2 teams that are trying to do the same thing, but are going about it in different ways. Both teams seem to want to play defensive hockey. The Rangers do so by playing a very physical, super aggressive, and leave everything on the ice style of hockey. The Caps do it by a combination of puck control, and smart positional play. They aren’t overly physical, and aren’t going to dive head first in front of shots like the Rangers seem willing to do. However they are very smart, extremely talented, and seemingly willing to play in their own end of the ice unlike years past. Give credit to Boudreau, he saw their style of hockey doesn’t really work, and fixed it.

Offensively the Rangers actually have better numbers than the Caps, but that is a little misleading since the Rangers have so many blowouts, including 2 against the Caps, while the Caps seem to be far more consistent in their scoring. The Rangers are kind of an all or nothing team. They seem to either score 5-7 goals, or 0-1 goals, and very few in the middle. That will probably play into the hands of the Caps because they figure you won’t score 5-7 on them more times than they will score 2-3 on you, know what I mean?

Goaltending wise the Rangers do have a huge advantage, however we saw how that can be nullified 2 years ago when the Caps overcame their 1-3 series deficit to rout the Rangers the rest of the series. Henrik won us 3 games, and our Offense lost us 4. That may be how it goes this series as well.

All in all, this is how I see it going down. Very close games, 3-2, 2-1, 1-0, and I see the Rangers severe lack of star power up front costing them the series. Unless Gaborik resurrects himself and goes apeshit crazy, I don’t see how the Rangers can A)Overcome the loss of Ryan Callahan and B)Consistently stop Backstrom, AO, and Semin with 2 rookies, McCabe, and Eminger out there. Well, I guess I could see how, but it would require the Rangers to send Marc Staal and Dan Girardi out there for 35-40 minutes a night, and that would be suicidal for this club. My head, heart, and gut all tell me that the Rangers have a definite chance to win this series. But, I’m going to go with the Capitals in this one, I just think the Rangers are too green behind the ears, and the Caps will be looking to exact some revenge against us for our regular season domination as well as for what happened to them last season. Caps in 6, with every game being decided by ~1 goal + Empty Netters.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

Every time you see a Ranger dive head first to break up a pass, every time you see a Ranger sacrifice his body in front of a canon of a shot from the point, every time you see a Rangers leave everything he has out there on the ice, you have to ask yourself, why the hell do they do that? The answer is simple. The payoff is the playoffs, and the Rangers are in it.

This is why I was ok with the Rangers acquiring McCabe. This is why I was so disappointed that the team might not have made it. Because the Rangers did everything, EVERYTHING you can ask from a team to make the playoffs. They played with guts, they played with balls, they played with heart, and about 79 games of the season they made me proud as hell to be a Ranger fan. Tough to ask for much more.

Going back to todays game, you saw a picture perfect example of the Rangers mentality. To grind it out, to never get down on yourselves, to wear other teams down with constant physical presence, and a never give up mentality. The Rangers showed some excellent heart by not giving up when Ilya Kovalchuk nearly took over the entire game single handedly in the first. Instead they clamped down even more defensively, and counter attacked when the Devils gave them the opportunity. They never seemed to deviate from the game play, and in the end walked out of the Garden with a chance, a very real chance, to make the playoffs.

Of course I DVR’ed the Canes-Bolts game and save the Hurricanes basically duplicate the Rangers performance against the Thrashers a few days back. They came out flat, or possibly nervous, either way it looked the same, and the Lightning ripped them to shreds with a quick counter attack that the Canes looked unable to stop. Give credit to the Lightning, they played this like it was a do or die game for them, instead of the meaningless 60 minutes that it really was for them, and the Rangers enjoyed every single minute of it.

Now, on to the playoffs. Rangers have the unenviable task of once again trying to play the Washington Capitals during the first round. A few years back they almost won a series from the Caps, but fell apart after taking a 3-1 lead. Do I think that will happen again? Check out the blog in the next day or so for my full preview.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

In 24 short hours I will have to go from hating the Thrashers with every fiber of my being, to being at the Philips Arena cheering them on…well…also with every fiber of my being. Such is the state of the NHL, and Rangerland today. The Rangers stunk today. Nobody played well. Not Henrik, not Prust, not Dubinsky, certainly not a benched Marian Gaborik. Nobody.

But the story of this season is probably not going to be about what the Rangers did or didn’t do, it’s going to be about what the rest of the NHL did around us. Over the final 30 days of the season the Rangers, according to my math, have captured 17 out of a possible 24 points. That’s .708 hockey, or 116 points over the course of the whole season. During that time they have actually lost ground on the playoffs, slipping from 7th, to 8th and having a very tenuous grasp on the 8th place spot as of right now. It’s tough to be angry at the team when you look at it that way, in fact I feel compelled to tip my hat to the Canes for staying in it despite having a harder schedule than us during that span. They’ve played lights out hockey, and we’ve played pretty damn close to lights out hockey and still have lost ground.

People love to point to the February debacle as the reason this team may find itself out of the playoff race, but heres how I look at it…
During the February time which you say was so awful, their schedule went like this.

Lost by 1 in a shootout to the Pens
Lost by 1 to the nuclear hot Devils
Lost by 2 to the Habs including an empty netter
Lost to Detroit by 1
Lost to the Thrashers by 1
Beat Pittsburgh and the Kings
Once again lost to the nuclear hot Devils by 1
Lost to the Flyers by 2 including an empty netter
Beat Washington and Carolina
Then lost to the Bolts by 1

So the month looks awful at 4-8-1

But thats where all those bad bounces come in, how many of those games were lost by a puck going into our own net by us? Id wager almost half of them, we can go check out the scoresheets and such but i remember this team being just unbelievably unlucky during that time.

Could the season have been lost because of February? I suppose, but the fact is, this team actually played really close hockey against red hot teams and teams that were way up there in teh standings, they also were in the playoff picture just 1 month ago, played .700 hockey, and have actually lost ground. No matter how you slice it, it’s tough to actually expect even more. *shrugs*

So, all in all, while im unhappy with this game, and very unhappy that this team may find itself without a chair when the music stops, it’s still be a pretty damn good season for the blueshirts, one in which luck, and injuries, have really hampered them.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

If the saying is no guts, no glory, then the opposite must be true, all guts, all glory. The Rangers personified that tonight. Holy mackerel what a game. This was one of those nights I was happy to have the house to myself because it was 3 am when I finally finished the epic affair, and when Dubinsky and then Sauer scored those goals I went absolutely insane. Screaming like the Rangers just won the goblet of Stanley or something.

To me this game changed when John Tortorella changed the lines. Immediately we saw the Prospal-Stepan-Wolski trio give us some good minutes, and he started riding that trio. They scored 2 huge goals for us to get us back into the game. Then what does Torts do? On a hunch he puts back the Dubi-AA-Cally line, and lo and behold they give us the tying goal. You want to talk about a smart coach who has a feel for his players and what’s going on in game? That, is John Tortorella. That was also my single biggest problem with Tom Renney. Renney just didn’t have any feel for the game. He went with what he knew, and when that didn’t work, he would try it again, and again, and again. Zero ability to put pieces together from other lines to spark his club. Zero ability to lean on the kids when the vets aren’t going. Torts though, he doesnt give a flying frak whether you make 200k, or 7.5 mil. If you are playing well, you’re going out there, if you aren’t putting up some good minutes, say hello to the bench.

I just can’t get over the heart this team showed tonight. Seriously, when they were down 3-0 I was so furious and dejected at the same time, whereas they just stuck to the game plan, kicked it up a notch, and pulled off easily the greatest win this team has had all year by a country mile.

Just win baby! Magic number is now at 3 if I’m not mistaken.

Rangers Review | Comments Off